Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West [Paperback]

Dee Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1991 | ISBN-10: 0805017305 | ISBN-13: 978-0805017304 | Edition: 1st Owl book =

A true classic of American history, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown’s eloquent, meticulously documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell in their won words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, this book changed forever our vision of how the West was really won.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

First published in 1970, this extraordinary book changed the way Americans think about the original inhabitants of their country. Beginning with the Long Walk of the Navajos in 1860 and ending 30 years later with the massacre of Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, it tells how the American Indians lost their land and lives to a dynamically expanding white society. During these three decades, America's population doubled from 31 million to 62 million. Again and again, promises made to the Indians fell victim to the ruthlessness and greed of settlers pushing westward to make new lives. The Indians were herded off their ancestral lands into ever-shrinking reservations, and were starved and killed if they resisted. It is a truism that "history is written by the victors"; for the first time, this book described the opening of the West from the Indians' viewpoint. Accustomed to stereotypes of Indians as red savages, white Americans were shocked to read the reasoned eloquence of Indian leaders and learn of the bravery with which they and their peoples endured suffering. With meticulous research and in measured language overlaying brutal narrative, Dee Brown focused attention on a national disgrace. Still controversial but with many of its premises now accepted, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee has sold 5 million copies around the world. Thirty years after it first broke onto the national conscience, it has lost none of its importance or emotional impact. --John Stevenson

From Library Journal

This 1970 volume greatly changed the view of pioneers' westward advancement. Based largely on primary source materials, this volume details how white settlers forced Indian tribes off the plains, often simply by killing them. Though Hollywood and penny dreadfuls portrayed Indians as red devils who launched unprovoked attacks on innocent homesteaders, Brown's research shows that the opposite is closer to the truth. The text is buttressed with numerous period photos. An essential purchase. (LJ 12/15/70)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 487 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Company; 1st Owl book = edition (March 15, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805017305
• ISBN-13: 978-0805017304
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (205 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #636,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wounded knee, broken heart, shattered nation, December 29, 2000

By 

"michaeleve" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (Paperback)

Be prepared to be affected by this book. I guarantee that you can not read it without being emotionally touched and moved by this account of the loss of a beautiful land, the demise of a conscientious and spiritual way of life and finally the extirpation of a nation of people; or at least their ceasing to exist as free, independent, proud and noble individuals.

The book had a profound impact on readers when it was first published in 1971 for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it took a unique perspective. Reports of Treaty meetings, tribal histories, Congressional findings and interview transcripts have all been distilled to provide the Indian point of view. Indeed the books' subtitle is 'An Indian History of the American West'. The second factor has to do with when the book was published. Interest in environmental issues was growing and the accounts of the destruction by the settlers of the Eastern forests, the soiling of the rivers and the slaughter of the Buffalo herds struck a chord, especially when contrasted with the practices of the Indians. Readers began to see Indians in a different light, as the first conservationists.

The period of history covered is short. From about 1860 to 1890. The first chapter briefly sketches the interactions between Eupopean and Indians from the formers' arrival in Massachusetts in 1620 up to the setting up of the 'permanent indian frontier' west of the Mississippi in 1847.

The 'frontier' lasted no time at all. Gold was discovered, land was sought and settlers flocked west. To cover this in legitimacy it was necessary to invent 'Manifest Destiny'. The Indians were now doomed as history has shown that this policy made it manifest that the Indians were destined to be swept aside by the white man. All that we have left is their legends, their magical placenames and some works like this book that provides insights into how the West was really lost.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hidden History, July 14, 2000

By 

Rhonda Fox (St. Bernard, Louisiana United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (Paperback)

Nothing could prepare me for the emotional effect that "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" would have on me. Dee Brown brings us the history of the white settlement of the American West as told by the people who were there, both white and Indian. This is not the history we learned in school, and the book will shatter the images of many of our heroes, but the story is important enough that I think every American should read it.

I also recommend "The Trail of Tears", by Gloria Jahoda, which is the history of the removal of the eastern tribes to the west. These two books are neccessary if you, as an American, want a complete education of American History.

Beyond education, these books present a people who loved the earth, trusted and respected mankind, and lived honorable lives. I trust that these stories of the near annihilation of our native people at the hands of our forefathers will effect you in unexpected ways, and that you will come away from the experience with new heroes, and a broken heart.

143 of 168 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, and well written, but shortsighted., April 23, 2006

By 

Monty Rainey (New Braunfels, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (Paperback)

Let me first say, Dee Brown's book, BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE is a well written classic that flows nicely. It contains great structure and is a pleasure to read. Certainly no right thinking person would disagree that the American Indians were used and abused by the government at every turn. The treaties the Indians signed were more often than not, not worth the paper they were written on. Murderous cowards like Chivington betrayed those who declared themselves peaceful and friends of the whites, like Black Kettle and the Cheyenne atrocity at Sand Creek. While still under British rule, Indians of the Ohio Valley were victims of one of the first instances of bio-terrorism when the British knowingly and deliberately infected them with small pox.

So while it is safe to say the sentiment of Brown's book is clearly accurate and justified, for the overall scope of the book, exception must be taken by anyone seeking the cold hard truth. Since Brown's book was published, and quickly popularized, most historians have followed Brown's approach to viewing the Indian wars of the American West from a strictly ethnocentric viewpoint. To them, the term "Indian wars" has come to mean only "Indian - White wars", fought primarily to interrupt the flow of the expansion of white settlement. Paul Wellman began this trend in 1934 with his publication of the account of the 1862 Minnesota Massacre, DEATH ON THE PRARIE. However, what Wellman began, Brown perfected, until we have now reach, in this country, where the history of the American Indian is involved, a sort of Zinnian approach (a phrase I coined myself after revisionist historian Howard Zinn) to the re-writing or revision of American history, in this case specifically, the history of the American West.

I come to this conclusion for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is Brown's subtitle, "An Indian History of the American West". If that is, indeed, what he is seeking to fully examine, then Brown ignores the fact that Indians of different tribes held very different views of that history. He sought to interpret the Indian wars of the northern plains only as "Indian-white" wars and described them only from the viewpoint of the Sioux hostiles. Brown brushes off as "mercenaries" those tribes that became allies to the whites against the Sioux.

To view the Crow (who white trappers and traders had predicted in the 1830's would soon be extinct due to their far more numerous red enemies) and the Arikara (who also lost their land to the Sioux) as white "mercenaries" is far beyond simplistic reasoning and completely overlooks the long history of Indian warfare in the region. The Crow, Arikara and many other tribes had been fighting the Sioux (and losing, for the most part) for generations before they received any effective aid from the whites. Brown is shortsighted in his work to attempt to lend understanding of the plight of the Indian without an awareness of the history of intertribal warfare.

The Sioux migrated south and west to the Missouri around 1750. In the century preceding and following that movement, the Sioux engaged in war with at least twenty-six other Indian tribes, as well as the River Metis and the U.S. Army. Brown also fails to note that the most dramatic battles fought between the army and the Sioux were on lands the Sioux had taken from other tribes since 1851. Also overlooked is that the Arikara and Hidatsa chiefs who had signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 had both been killed by the Sioux when in 1864, the Arakara Chief White Shield petitioned the army to uphold its treaty and punish the Sioux.

Brown's book, as I said earlier, is well written, and parts of it are quite accurate. However, portraying history from only one viewpoint is shortsighted and often has dangerous consequences. Such is the case here. Brown's book has been accepted as gospel and has since led the way to even further revision of the truth.

Monty Rainey
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